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The Carnival in the Cauldron


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Shortly before the events in Ferguson unfolded, in a quiet little community not far from where I live, a young lass had left her home with the family border collie for a typical evening stroll on the local trail. It was a Thursday evening. Her body was discovered by a couple of joggers when they encountered the dog for a second time in the same vicinity as the first time they noticed her.

The radio had reported it several times on Friday, and at the time it seemed to be just another grisly story. In the evening, I ran across the story in one of the local e-papers where the name of the victim had been released. I recognized the name. I had gone out with the girl’s mother a few times when her daughter was less than a year old. I had held the little tyke on more than one occasion. Up until then, stories like these only affected other people’s lives. Not this time.

I listened to and read the reports and updates as they became available. Some stuck to the facts, others provided plenty of fuel for speculation. One of the other communities was having a local fair that featured an out-of-town group of “carnies”. This was the popular one. It rode in, like the carnival, complete with a merry-go-round of plausibilities that seemed to follow one another.

A day short of a week, two arrests were made that seemed unrelated to the case but tied to it in such a way as to raise an eyebrow.

A day short of two weeks, details from the autopsy report had been released. Again, the connections between these two events were scant, but present.

Two weeks and two days later, Michael Brown was shot dead by Officer Darren Williams. This happened in broad daylight, and amidst many onlookers. By the following weekend, I was essentially convinced of what had transpired.

Murder charges were levied one day short of eleven weeks. It wasn’t until the murder charges were levied that many of the details of the case were released in such a way as to substantiate them.

The grand jury decision for Officer Williams occurred three days shy of eleven weeks.

The mother of the murdered daughter, as well as many other concerned neighbors, have been frustrated by the length of time needed to amass and assess what evidence could be gathered. Despite the frustration, they are only asking that justice be served.

The Ferguson cauldron of public opinion is still simmering. From the residents of Canfield Street to the highest offices in the land, the recipe for resolution remains in dispute while the fires continue to be stoked. The caustic nature of this brew can be discovered in the aftermath of productive bystanders devastated by misdirected actions, and where one young man’s life cost another his livelihood.

The small town’s trial has yet to transpire. Unless the prosecution has bungled its investigation, I fully expect the accused to be found guilty. As with the details surrounding the events Officer Darren Williams found himself within, the details regarding this murder appear to piece together. The ongoing trial of the American system of self-governance continues to be stirred in an educational system that gives rise to riots, or produces an insistence on nothing less than justice being sought in earnest.
 

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  • 8 months later...

Linked in thru Drudge Report as The Man Who Shot Michael Brown Ferguson cop who killed black teen breaks silence...

 

 

The Cop

by Frank Halpern

 

An extensive interview with Darren Wilson the former police officer who shot and killed eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

 

This March, I spent several days at his home. The first time I pulled up to the curb, Wilson, who is six feet four and weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds, immediately stepped outside, wearing a hat and sunglasses. He had seen me arriving on security cameras that are synched to his phone.

 

After a recap of events transpiring after the shooting:

 

During our conversations, Wilson typically sat in a recliner, holding his baby daughter, who was born in March. He said that, after Brown’s death, people “had made threats about doing something to my unborn child.” Wilson, a former Boy Scout with round cheeks and blue eyes, speaks with a muted drawl. When Barb went to the hospital to give birth, he said, “I made her check in anonymously.”

 

The baby has helped Wilson, who also has two stepsons, accept the constrictions of his current situation. It has also allowed him to maintain a pointed distance from the furor that the shooting helped to unleash. He told me that he had not read the Justice Department’s report on the systemic racism in Ferguson. “I don’t have any desire,” he said. “I’m not going to keep living in the past about what Ferguson did. It’s out of my control.”

 

The story, after this, includes a brief take on his childhood, and several highlights from his training for and short career in the police department. The story comes across as a human interest story from a reporter that does not come across as having an axe to grind. It also include a brief biographical outline of Michael Brown. This 10,000+ word article also adds some perspective of watching the events unfold after the shooting from Darren's wife's (who was also an officer) input.

Edited by dream_weaver
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